Chaired by Michael C. Vazquez, this event shines a spotlight on pathways linking pivotal journals such as Transition, Drum, Black Images, Joe, Staffrider and Black Orpheus to current trends in African and African diasporic book publishing, pathways marked by an enduring fidelity to print - an expanded and increasingly hybrid entity - as a means of exchanging ideas.

At the same time, where bookshops and independent publishers such as New Beacon and Bogle L’Ouverture in London, Presence Africaine in Paris or Third World Press in Chicago once flourished as hubs for political and intellectual thought, the digital mediascape now provides unprecedented space and means - utilised by the likes of Chimurenga, Kwani?, Farafina, Brittle Paper and Jalada - to raise unpopular voices and form complex communities of writers and readers.

Shaun Randol founded The Mantle in 2009. Today he is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher. You can email him at shaun [at] themantle.net. Shaun is the co-editor of Gambit: Newer African Writing. He is also a Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York City, and a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the PEN American Center.